


XIV. The Desert of Colours 1/1

by wildwinterwitch



Series: Sanctuary Verse [18]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwinterwitch/pseuds/wildwinterwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor reads Tony a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	XIV. The Desert of Colours 1/1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after _Silver Leaves_ , crossover with _The Neverending Story_ by Michael Ende, written for Challenge 40 at [](http://then-theres-us.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://then-theres-us.livejournal.com/)**then_theres_us** , an AU in which the Doctor and Rose turn up as either themselves or characters in a novel.

_Night time came and the Doctor sat on Tony's bed with the blue book on his lap. As he slid on his glasses, the boy snuggled up to him as best he could beneath the duvet. He looked very tired after their long day of playing games in the garden and fixing the toaster. Rose smiled as she leaned against the door frame. The Doctor looked up at her and gave her his goofy-happy smile._

_“Which story would you like to hear tonight?” the Doctor asked._

_“The one in which Grograman saves Rose,” Tony replied promptly. It was one of his favourite stories. It was one of their weirder adventures, and Rose wondered why her little brother liked it so much and why the Doctor had included it in his collection of stories for Tony in the first place. This was the stuff of nightmares._

_The Doctor exchanged glances with her and she shrugged. Rose pushed herself away from the door and made to leave._

_“No, stay!” Tony cried when he saw she was leaving._

_She managed to smile and nod. Saying no to him was hard, particularly after her disappearance. Tony needed the reassurance. “Okay.”_

_“Sit here!” Tony said softly, pointing at the foot of his bed where he could see her as he listened. Rose made herself comfortable. The Doctor opened the book with a dramatic gesture and began to read like he always did..._

*

Tales from the TARDIS. A Storybook for Tony. Translated from Gallifreyan by John Noble.

The Girl woke when the sun had risen high enough in the sky to blaze down fiercely, and Goab, the Desert of Colours, was shining in all its cruel glory. Some shades of colour were still rippling and swirling, collecting into hills and dunes. The desert around her looked like the riot of colours she had seen at a market. It was in the wandering shadow of one such dune that the Girl had found protection, but now no more. She was hot and hungry. She remembered eating strangely hot and spicy fruit, like melons, yet completely different, but she had no recollection at all where she'd had them, or when. That last question was easily answered: it had been long enough for her to get hungry again.

The Girl pushed herself up and began to climb the deep blue dune in whose shadow she had slept. The sand was fine and hot, and she slipped back a half a step for every step forward she took. Eventually, she reached the ridge of the dune. She shielded her eyes with her hands and looked around, taking in the vastness of colour and heat around her; it seemed endless and cruel in its beauty.

*

_Rose shivered a little. The people on Sedti IV had been so fascinated by her power of imagination that they had abducted her from right in front of the Doctor's eyes to find out more about her. They stripped her of her memories and of what she was but they did not reckon on her willpower; and they couldn’t have known about Bad Wolf. She protected her by hiding her inside her power of imagination, sending her to the most vivid world she had ever created from the pages of a book._

*

The Girl dropped her hands by her sides. Although she knew the name of this place she could not remember her own name. There was a vague idea of something at the back of her mind, but whenever she tried to grasp it, it faded or flitted away, as if it wanted to guide her somewhere.

She concentrated. There it was, a golden idea, burning like fire and ice. She reached out, blindly, literally closing her eyes to hold on to the guiding light. She knew she had to follow it.

She turned and let the idea guide her, down the deep blue dune, into the valley where it mingled with the shocking pink of its neighbour. The sand shimmered in the sun, like... like something she had seen before. Snow. She recalled touching it, only to find it melt away in her palm. She stooped to pick up a handful of the pink sand. It was hot and solid, and when she turned her fist and let it trickle from between her fingers, a light breeze played with it and carried it away in the barest whisper of a veil. It was beautiful.

The Girl kept walking, following the idea. She did not know if she was walking deeper into Goab, the Desert of Colours, or towards its edge, if there was one. It was the biggest desert in all of Fantastica.

Even as the sun burned down relentlessly, she never stopped, the idea firmly guiding her and helping her to ignore the needs of her body. She had never felt as strong, and the longer her journey took her up and down the hills of colourful sand the clearer another idea became. She created herself. There was nothing and no one she needed to fear.

Just when that idea took shape in her mind and became a thought she could grasp there was a thunderous roar in the distance, coming from where she was headed. The horizon, which until then had seemed sharp and solid enough to touch, became blurred as the coloured sand flew up as if to make way for something very powerful. She stopped to see what was happening.

A shape detached itself from the multi-coloured dust and approached her fast. It was only a matter of heartbeats until it had reached her. As the cloud of sand settled around it, swirling and slithering back into distinct pools of colour, a creature took shape. It was a gigantic lion the exact same shade of sunflower yellow as the dune he was standing on. The sun was behind him, creating a fiery corona around his wild mane.

The Lion tilted his head in surprise. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice rumbling in his chest, deep and warm yet awe-inspiring. The Lion was bewildered.

She looked up at him, her hands still shading her eyes. Her answer surprised her. “I am Bad Wolf,” she said, her voice small and fragile yet firm. How could she not have remembered her own name?

The Lion's blazing eyes rounded and he seemed to think for a while before he nodded. “Yes, you are.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Grograman, the Lord of the Desert of Colours,” he answered. “And I bow to you, my mistress. I am your humble servant.”

“Don't do that,” Bad Wolf said gently, a bit embarrassment.

“You are the only creature in existence whom I cannot burn,” Grograman said. “I am the Many-Coloured Death; everyone dies in my presence. But you create yourself. And...”

“And?” Bad Wolf asked, her eyes lighting up with hope. There was that golden guiding light again, and it was brighter than it had ever been before.

“What kind of a name is Bad Wolf?” the Lion asked.

“It's the only name I can remember,” the Girl said softly, sadly. She was Bad Wolf. That was all she knew. The only other thing she had was the golden idea, but it was just that, a vague idea that had yet to be born and take shape and become a thought.

“Might I ask you to climb on my back, Bad Wolf? I would like to take you to my palace, if it pleases you,” he said, settling into the burning sand so she could get up.

“I would like that,” she said, burying her fingers in his thick shaggy mane. It reminded her of someone else's hair into which she had sunk her fingers, but Grograman felt different.

“Hold on tight, my mistress, for I am a fast runner.”

As the Lion moved the Girl noticed that his coat changed its colour to match the sand beneath his paws. But since he really was a fast runner the dunes flew past in a flurry of colour so mesmerising that she buried her face in his wild mane and inhaled the scent of adventure it carried.

She had no idea how long they had been travelling when finally he stopped and she slid off his back. The sun was setting, illuminating the basalt pillars and crags that was his palace at the heart of Goab. What looked like both a ruin and a mountain rose from the colourful sand, casting ragged long shadows on the sand by its foot.

“Let's go inside,” Grograman said, nudging her gently towards the entrance. They followed a path nearly too narrow for the Lion until they reached the portal. Braziers were suspended from the unfathomably tall ceiling, and the fire burning in the was coloured and dim compared to the glare of the desert sun. It took her eyes a while to adjust, and when they did she noticed that the floor of the vast cave they had entered was tiled in the same colours as the sand; Grograman changed colours even in here.

“This is where I return every night,” he explained. He padded towards a massive block of smooth black stone in the centre of the cave. “This is where I sleep, my mistress. You'll find a room with a very comfortable bed and anything else you might need behind that door. There will be an awful noise soon; don't be alarmed, it is how things are in my realm. I bid you good night, my mistress.”

“Thank you,” the Girl said, ruffling the Lion's mane before she stepped towards the door he had indicated. When she reached it she turned around, and somehow she knew that Grograman had settled on the pedestal to turn into stone for the night. His coat of colour was already turning dull and grey. She smiled sadly and stepped into her chamber.

The vaulted ceiling was supported by many slender columns, and the sight reminded her of a place she had once seen in a picture. Thick colourful rugs covered the floor; a bed was ready for her beneath a blue canopy. There was a pool to her left, filled with a thick, golden liquid, and on its edge sat bowls and plates with food and drink for her.

*

_Tony shifted from the Doctor's side to curl up with his head in her lap. Rose drew her fingers through his dark blond hair in a soothing manner._

*

Bad Wolf smiled. She undressed and slid into the bath; it was hot and cool at the same time. From the phials sitting on the edge of the pool she selected a small bottle holding a pale pink liquid. She poured it into the pool and the water changed to a gentle rosy colour.

_“Rose...”_

She froze in the bath. The scent was exactly that, of a rose.

_“Rose!”_

*

_“That's you, isn't it?” Tony whispered as the Doctor softly called her name. Tony rarely ever interrupted him, but now that he had both of them here and because he knew the story, he needed to know. Rose wondered if answering his questions would take away from their magic._

_“Yes,” the Doctor said simply._

_“How did she hear you?”_

_The Doctor lay on his side with his head propped on his hand. “I leaned down and whispered in her ear.”_

_Rose continued to draw her fingers through Tony's soft hair. The truth was that the Doctor had freed her from the experiments and taken her to safety aboard the TARDIS, where he established a telepathic link to get her back, tapping into her hiding place when he finally found her._

_The Doctor continued._

*

The voice was soft like the memory of an echo, faint and distant. She was quite sure she hadn't imagined it; it was more than a returning memory. She knew that voice, and she realised that it was part of the golden idea she was looking for.

_“Rose.”_

“I am here,” she said.

Rose. That was her name. She was Rose, but she was also Bad Wolf. She created herself.

_“Don't... don't be... afraid... safe... you are... I'm... with... here. Rose!”_

“I am here!” she cried, her face raised to the ceiling. “I'm here!”

Indescribable happiness washed over her. Someone was looking for her; someone wanted her safe. Wasn't she safe in Grograman's palace? He protected her and gave her food and shelter. Wasn't he good?

Just then a blood curdling scream reverberated in the cave outside. Grograman, she knew, was dying to give birth to Perilin, the Night Forest. Although she knew that he had to give his life to create the beautiful, luminous forest and would be reborn again the next morning, tears stung her eyes. He roared once more, then silence reigned in the palace.

_“Rose?”_

“I'm... I'm here,” she replied.

_“Don't... me... need... you... leave... please, Rose?”_

“I'm so tired, Doctor,” she replied.

And just like that the golden idea had taken shape and become a thought.

“So very tired,” Rose whispered. “Please don't leave me.” She climbed out of the bath, wrapped the fluffy robe that had appeared by the side of the pool around her body, and curled up on the divan. The Doctor had said she was safe. She remembered who she was. She didn't know why she wasn't with the Doctor, but he'd told her she was safe. That was good enough for her. She was so tired, so very tired.

The Girl, Bad Wolf, Rose, closed her eyes and fell asleep. And when she woke she did so in her own bed, in the TARDIS.

*

_“And when you woke you were my Rose again?” Tony asked, twisting in her arms so he could look at her. He looked sleepy but anxious._

Rose nodded, unable to speak.

“Well, it's time for you now to go to bed,” the Doctor said, and the weird moment was gone. He snapped the book shut, stretched to put it on Tony's bedside table and took off his glasses. Tony moved again, crawling under the covers the Doctor had peeled back for him. Tony was so tired he didn't notice them kissing him good night before they left.

Outside his room, the Doctor pulled Rose into his arms and kissed her. “He loves the story so much because it's about a story that saved you,” he said softly, rubbing her back.

“Books. Best weapons in the universe,” Rose mused, tucking her head beneath his chin.

And the source of serious trouble.

But that's another story and shall be told another time.


End file.
